Do You Prepare for Game Sequels?

With the release of Dragon Age: Inquisition on the horizon, I’ve been considering if I want to prepare for it or not. By “prepare” I mean play through Dragon Age: Origins and Dragon Age II. I had a great time with DA:O, and less fun with DAII, but recently I’ve found myself wanting to play these games again. I want to go into Inquisition mostly sight unseen, so I’ve been avoiding a good deal of its news and rumors. I don’t know that there’s any good reason to play through the previous games – your playable characters don’t carry through the games like they do in, say Mass Effect. But I wouldn’t mind reacquainting myself with the world of Dragon Age before the third game.

This train of thought is rather odd for me because I don’t normally worry too much about playing a game series in a particular order. After all, with Final Fantasy I went in the non-order of VII, X, III, IV, and XIII-2, so…yeah. And I played Uncharted 2 and 3, but have yet to touch the original game. I also don’t bother much with replaying a previous game before its sequel is released. There was no replaying of Mass Effect 1 or 2 before 3. Same went for the Fable games. Though I maybe should have played Batman: Arkham Asylum, I went straight for Arkham City instead. And there are few compelling reasons to visit Grand Theft Auto‘s illustrious past before a new game arrives.

It’s not like this is a hard and fast rule for me, because there are exceptions. For Mario fans, I guess we’ve all probably played the games in sequence because of how they are released. Plus, new Nintendo system almost automatically equals new Mario game. (And there’s little to know reason you have to “prepare” for any of those.) The same goes for Zelda and Sonic games, and probably Call of Duty and its ilk, I imagine. (Though please correct me if I’m wrong.) When I picked up the Metroid Prime trilogy, there was no question in my mind that I was going to play it in order.

There’s another interesting phenomenon that I’ve also picked up on in this same vein: playing older versions of games before new versions are released. You can tell me if this is an actual thing or not, but during a gaming-centric conversation with some of my co-workers, one guy brought up that he wanted to get the newly furbished Mass Effect trilogy for the PS4/Xbox One, but he first needed to play the original games again. When asked why, he brought up a surprising and pointed analogy. When the re-mastered Star Wars movies came out, didn’t you watch the originals versions of the movies first? He wasn’t wrong there, because I did exactly that with my friends. In 1997, before the release of each “new” movie (the ones with all the swanky new digital effects), we watched the original version. It made total sense then, and I guess it makes sense now for people to want to do that with games. The Last of Us and Tomb Raider come to mind, but surely there have been others.

I know that, even if I had the older Dragon Age games, which I don’t, I wouldn’t have time to play through both of them before Inquisition, though I might try. Maybe play through a level or two. Not doing so may preoccupy my thoughts for awhile longer, but it isn’t going to stress me out. I’m sure Inquisition will be a blast in its own right. (Though if it’s more DAII and less DA:O…well…it better not be that way.)

So how about a short poll? Do you prepare for video game sequels or not? If so, do you prefer to play previous games or do you get a refresher through other means? Click below to vote and offer up any further thoughts in the comment section.

I don’t do it as often anymore, just not willing to make the time for it. there was a time where I would make brand new characters to carry over into each of the Mass Effect sequels, and always starting from the first game.

Flash forward to 2014: DA: Inquisition is coming out so I think I’ll play both games in preparation. I start DA: Origins but quickly realize that I’m not going to have the patience to plod through the exceptionally long campaign, so I settle for going through DA2 again in the hopes that my favorite version of Hawke will appear in Inquisition. We know Hawke is in there, so I’m thinking the effort won’t be wasted. 😀

That’s my thought exactly as well! Even though DAII and I didn’t get along, I’ve been wanting to play it again more than DA:O because it seems, at least, that DAII will meld more into Inquisition than Origins.

I’m rightly impressed with your ME skills there. I only fully carried one Shepard through all three games.

On another note, I’m not convinced that the watching the original movies before the versions really works when it comes to game re-releases. I’d find it difficult to enjoy the remastered Tomb Raider or Mass Effect games if I’d literally just played them on the original consoles, especially if there was no new content (which in those games there isn’t).

It works if there’s a big enough difference I think. Like in the case of games like Kingdom Hearts and Kingdom Hearts 1.5 HD Remix though.Since there is just so much more content and graphical difference between the two.

Yeah, I’d be hard pressed as well to jump into any remastered games that I had just played. Are slightly prettier graphics worth the investment? Eh, I guess they are to some.

That’s interesting about KH. I actually didn’t know that Remix versions differed from the originals in content. Now those I wouldn’t mind playing at some point before KHIII. It’s just been so long since I’ve spent any time in that universe.

Yeah there’s a few differences. It’s the final mix version from Japan, so there’s some changes. enemies are re-skinned, new enemies are added, a new boss was added along with 2 new keyblades, a couple new cutscenes and Ansem’s Reports. It’s nice.

I don’t typically prepare for a game’s sequel. As much as I love the Dragon Age series, it’s much too long for me to go back and replay it all again. Especially now that I don’t have a ton of time like I used to. I hope I can replay it all again one day, but I’m diving head first into Inquisition!

I think the time for playing through ALL the DA games will be when they release them as a set (like with the Mass Effect trilogy). Well, maybe. That’s still a lot of gameplay! If I can get my hands on a copy of DAII in the next couple months, I might fire it up. Otherwise, I’ll be right there with you and everyone else, ready to dive in to Inquisition. 🙂

I don’t think I typically “prepare” for new games. I mean, if they are accessible to me, I usually try and play games in order, or they just happen to get played in order if I’ve been keeping up with them. But, if I want to start a series that’s been out, I’ll usually just get what I can pick up in stores, and if I like it, then I’ll go hunt down the prequels. And if I don’t care, I don’t bother. When I started playing the Ratchet and Clank series, only the second game could be found in stores, so that was my starting point. It’s not that common for me to play games in the order, actually, as I usually get a late start in most series.

Oh, by the way, my Final Fantasy order so far has been Crystal Chronicles, 10, 12, 13, 7, 8, 6, 9. Huh, not bad for playing the games willy nilly.

I think that’s generally true of a lot of gamers, because not everyone has the capacity to pick up a game series from the very beginning. When I played Uncharted 2 or Batman: Arkham City, I went in thinking “I should really play the original games first.” But once I got into the games, the previous ones just didn’t matter. Might I have missed some references to the original games in their sequels? Sure, but I was having too much fun to notice. 🙂

That’s quite a list of Final Fantasy games!(And boy, do I have a ways to go, haha.) Do you hope to eventually play all FF games?